Liquid-crystal display
A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly, instead using a backlight or reflector to produce images in color or monochrome.http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lcd LCDs are available to display arbitrary images (as in a general-purpose computer display) or fixed images with low information content, which can be displayed or hidden, such as preset words, digits, and 7-segment displays, as in a digital clock. They use the same basic technology, except that arbitrary images are made up of a large number of small pixels, while other displays have larger elements. History 1970s In the 1970s, the Japanese electronics industry produced the first digital quartz wristwatches with TN LCD displays (twisted nematic field effect). Tetsuro Hama and Izuhiko Nishimura of Seiko received a US patent dated February 1971, for an electronic wristwatch incorporating a TN LCD display.US3881311A patent: Driving arrangement for passive time indicating devices In 1973, Sharp Corporation introduced the use of LCD displays for calculators, and then mass-produced TN LCD displays for watches in 1975.Note on the Liquid Crystal Display Industry, Auburn University, 1995 The first color LCD displays and the first TFT LCD displays were invented by Japan's Sharp Corporation in the 1970s, receiving patents for their inventions. The first color LCD display was invented by Sharp's Shinji Kato and Takaaki Miyazaki in May 1975,JPS51139582A patent: Liquid crystal display units and then improved by Fumiaki Funada and Masataka Matsuura in December 1975.JPS5279948A patent: Liquid crystal color display device The first TFT LCD display was invented in 1976 by a team at Sharp consisting of Fumiaki Funada, Masataka Matsuura, and Tomio Wada,JPS5327390A patent: Liquid crystal display device then improved in 1977 by a Sharp team consisting of Kohei Kishi, Hirosaku Nonomura, Keiichiro Shimizu, and Tomio Wada.JPS5437697A patent: Liquid crystal display unit of matrix type 1980s The first color LCD televisions were invented as handheld televisions in Japan. In 1980, Hattori Seiko's R&D group began development on color LCD pocket televisions.Spin, Jul 1985, page 55 In 1982, Seiko Epson released the first LCD television, the Epson TV Watch, a wristwatch equipped with an active-matrix LCD television.The world's first television-watch, with an active-matrix LCD, EpsonMichael R. Peres, [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NMJxyAwGvKcC&pg=PA306 The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, page 306], Taylor & Francis Sharp Corporation introduced dot matrix TN LCD displays in 1983. In 1984, Epson released the ET-10, the first full-color, pocket LCD television.A HISTORY OF CREATING INSPIRATIONAL TECHNOLOGY, Epson The same year, Citizen Watch,Popular Science, May 1984, page 150 another Seiko Hattori subsidiary (along with Epson), introduced the Citizen Pocket TV, a 2.7-inch color LCD TV, with the first commercial TFT LCD display. In 1986, Sharp introduced dot matrix STN LCD displays. In 1988, Sharp demonstrated a 14-inch, active-matrix, full-color, full-motion TFT LCD display. This led to Japan launching an LCD industry, which developed large-size LCD displays, including TFT computer monitors and LCD televisions.Hirohisa Kawamoto (2013), The history of liquid-crystal display and its industry, HISTory of ELectro-technology CONference (HISTELCON), 2012 Third IEEE, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, DOI 10.1109/HISTELCON.2012.6487587 Epson developed the 3LCD projection technology in the 1980s, and licensed it for use in projectors in 1988.Find out what is an LCD Projector, how does it benefit you, and the difference between LCD and 3LCD here, Epson Epson's VPJ-700, released in January 1989, was the world's first compact, full-color LCD projector. 1990s–2010s In 1990, under different titles, inventors conceived electro optical effects as alternatives to twisted nematic field effect LCDs (TN- and STN- LCDs). One approach was to use interdigital electrodes on one glass substrate only to produce an electric field essentially parallel to the glass substrates. To take full advantage of the properties of this In Plane Switching (IPS) technology further work was needed. In 1992, engineers at Hitachi worked out various practical details of the IPS technology to interconnect the thin-film transistor array as a matrix and to avoid undesirable stray fields in between pixels. : K. Kondo, H. Terao, H. Abe, M. Ohta, K. Suzuki, T. Sasaki, G. Kawachi, J. Ohwada, Liquid crystal display device, filed Sep 18, 1992 and Jan 20, 1993. Hitachi also improved the viewing angle dependence further by optimizing the shape of the electrodes (Super IPS). NEC and Hitachi became early manufacturers of active-matrix addressed LCDs based on the IPS technology. This is a milestone for implementing large-screen LCDs having acceptable visual performance for flat-panel computer monitors and television screens. In 1996, Samsung developed the optical patterning technique that enables multi-domain LCD. Multi-domain and In Plane Switching subsequently remain the dominant LCD designs through 2006. In the late 1990s, the LCD industry began shifting away from Japan, towards South Korea and Taiwan. In the fourth quarter of 2007, LCD televisions surpassed CRTs in worldwide sales for the first time. LCD TVs were projected to account 50% of the 200 million TVs to be shipped globally in 2006, according to Display Bank. In October 2011, Toshiba announced 2560 × 1600 pixels on a 6.1-inch (155 mm) LCD panel, suitable for use in a tablet computer, especially for Chinese character display. See also *FPD-Link *LCD classification *LCD projector *List of liquid-crystal-display manufacturers References External links * History and Physical Properties of Liquid Crystals by Nobelprize.org * Definitions of basic terms relating to low-molar-mass and polymer liquid crystals (IUPAC Recommendations 2001) * An intelligible introduction to liquid crystals from Case Western Reserve University * Liquid Crystal Physics tutorial from the Liquid Crystals Group, University of Colorado * Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals a journal by Taylor and Francis * Hot-spot detection techniques for ICs * PixPerAn, software for testing motion blur (ghosting) on a monitor General information * Development of Liquid Crystal Displays: Interview with George Gray, Hull University, 2004 – Video by the Vega Science Trust. * Timothy J. Sluckin History of Liquid Crystals, a presentation and extracts from the book Crystals that Flow: Classic papers from the history of liquid crystals. * David Dunmur & Tim Sluckin (2011) Soap, Science, and Flat-screen TVs: a history of liquid crystals, Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0-19-954940-5. * * Overview of 3LCD technology, Presentation Technology * LCD Phase and Clock Adjustment, Techmind offers a free test screen to get a better LCD picture quality than the LCDs "auto-tune" function. *Interfacing Alphanumeric LCD to Microcontroller *Animations explaining operation of LCD panels *Liquid crystals are distributed by Merck Group (DE), and Yancheng Smiling (CN). Category:American inventions Category:Display technology Category:Liquid crystal displays Category:Articles containing video clips